Judging from recent letters and articles in the press, reinforced by anecdotal evidence, there are strong feelings amongst Caymanians that their traditional culture is being lost; that the root cause of this is the expat population and that the problem can be fixed by the rollover policy.

In these three views, they are dead right; partially right and dead wrong.

I have every sympathy with those who mourn the loss of the old Caymanian way of life. Nostalgia is a powerful emotion but, even allowing for selective memory and a rose tinted rear-view mirror, I'm convinced that the Cayman of the seventies offered a much better quality of life (for Caymanians and expats alike) than today.

Granted, material goods were less (no TV for example) but the social fabric of the country was far stronger.

To blame many of the changes that Cayman has experienced on expats is understandable, but unfair. In general, expats have not arrived uninvited onto Cayman; rather, they have come because Caymanian government policy over the last 30 years has actively promoted economic growth, primarily in the financial and tourism sectors.

Year after year, statistics proclaiming "air arrivals up 12 percent " or "26 new banks licensed" have proudly trumpeted Cayman's growth, on the unchallenged assumption that growth was, per se, a good thing.

The result is that Cayman has moved from a sleepy village to a bustling town and it is probably this loss of village community and extended family life that has hurt the Cayman lifestyle more than anything else.

Can the clock be turned back? Unfortunately not. The Ritz Carlton cannot be un-built; the Fort and Doctor Roy's house cannot be un-bulldozed; nor the Goldfield refloated. Planning for Cayman's future has to start from where we are now.

If Caymanians are concerned about the size of the expat population on the Island, then this situation needs to be addressed by a transparent, logical and well-articulated Government policy.

If it is left to the proposed rollover system to control the number of expats, then the inevitable consequence will be that the brightest and most talented will see the writing on the wall and leave. These are the very people that Cayman should seek to retain.

Government should not sit on the fence and fudge the issue of economic growth any longer. It says that it supports economic growth.

However, growth means an increase in the workforce, which in turn leads to more expats, since the Caymanian workforce is relatively fixed.

If Cayman, as a community, wants to reduce the numbers of expats (which in my view would result in economic disaster for many obvious reasons), or even to keep the current numbers constant, then Government must determine those areas of the economy that have to be reduced or else not allowed expand any more. Essentially, this comes down to choosing between tourism and the financial sector.

The financial sector has a relatively small expat workforce and is a high margin business that creates those types of jobs that the majority of Caymanians prefer. Not to mention that it provides a large revenue stream for Government. On the other hand, surely it is inconceivable that any government would seek to reduce its tourism industry.

Tourists are needed to fill airplane and restaurant seats, buy from local shops and help occupy the large numbers of hotels and condominium rooms that are available. So what is the solution?

In my opinion what Government needs to do is to estimate the relative benefits from and burdens placed on Cayman's resources and infrastructure by financial services and tourism expat workers respectively.

Acknowledging my bias because I work in the financial sector, I would hazard that an average financial services worker contributes more money to the economy (because they are higher paid) and to Government (because of higher work permit fees and business licence fees) than an average tourism worker. As a concrete example, the large accountancy firms pay about US$14,000 p.a. for each expatriate professional to the Government in work permit and Trade and Business Licence fees.

Tourism workers have the added disadvantage of requiring tourists, who in turn place their own strain on Cayman's infrastructure.

My conclusion from this is that Government should not leave the size and composition of the expat community to the arbitrary consequences of the rollover policy, but rather should take positive steps to encourage the financial services sector by providing a stable and secure environment for its workers.

If growth is allowed to continue in both the tourism and finance sectors, in ten years time we'll be reading letters in the press lamenting the city that Cayman has become and looking back nostalgically to the days when it was merely a town.